East Coast rape suspect claims split personality

MANASSAS, Va. – The man suspected of raping women throughout the East Coast is claiming he has a split personality, and has been ordered to undergo a second mental health evaluation before he stands trial for raping two teenage girls and attacking another October 31, 2009.

Aaron Thomas “has complained of an alternate personality named Erwin, active at the time of the alleged offenses and suggestive of possible dissociative identity disorder,” writes Thomas’ defense attorney Ronald Fahy in a motion.

He says his client has reported “experiencing auditory and visual hallucinations” while incarcerated, and “has cut his wrists and smeared blood on the walls of his cell.”

Thomas was a patient at Georgetown University Psychiatric Hospital, according to Fahy.

Earlier, another doctor who examined Thomas determined he was “malingering” or faking mental illness.

Thomas’ jury trial is scheduled to begin in July. He allegedly held three girls — all between the ages of 16 and 17 — at gunpoint and raped two of them in Dale City after a night of trick-or-treating.

The ongoing evaluation will determine whether Thomas was sane at the time of the attacks.

Thomas has been linked to 17 attacks in Virginia, Maryland and Connecticut over 20 years.